Different voices, different opinions: "Rewarding failure? With David Cameron’s return, it’s being celebrated like never before..." (The Guardian)

 Rewarding failure? With David Cameron’s return, it’s being celebrated like never before

Marina Hyde in The Guardian ......

"Who’s that walking up Downing Street? Why, it’s the man who ghosted Britain! In some ways the sight of David Cameron back in SW1 was always a possibility. Behavioural science tells us these guys often return to the scene of their crimes – either to retrieve a trophy, or to show police the various burial sites in the hope of receiving a slightly more lenient sentence. In this case, from the history books.

But let’s be real: the only acceptable excuse Cameron would have for being in the Downing Street area is that he has been sent back in time to terminate his past self before the moment he accidentally sets the UK on the course of permacrisis politics, in which it is still agonisingly and destructively trapped."  

"With the best will in the world, then, Rishi Sunak’s big move feels most squarely pitched at the emergency podcast market. Is there such a thing as an emergency foreign secretary?", says Marina Hyde.

She further says, "Inevitably, people have suggested that pulling a move to restore Cameron to the frontline is like rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic, but arguably that doesn’t really cover it."

Ms Marina 

"Perhaps instead of representing the triumph of experience, as billed, Cameron’s return as foreign secretary says something about our age of defeat, where some of the gurus most fetishised are the ones who already had a go and failed, in many cases absolutely disastrously. 

I know you learn a lot from failure, but I sometimes wonder if the United Kingdom deserves slightly more than being a recurring plot device in these people’s journey towards personal growth. Many will feel David wouldn’t even deserve a comeback as an ITV press officer, his only previous job outside politics."

Ms Helene: Historian born in Brussels to German parents, and grew up in Russia, Germany and Belgium.

Helene von Bismarck

"In Europe, we can’t help laughing at David Cameron’s return – but we welcome it too" ---

"It is quite incredible really. David Cameron is back. The former prime minister who gambled with the future of his country by calling the Brexit referendum because he wanted to resolve a dispute within his own party is now entrusted with representing British interests on the world stage.

As a European, it is impossible not to laugh: I did, for several minutes, when news broke of his resurrection. But in spite of the staggering irony of it all, this could actually be good news from the perspective of the UK’s allies in Europe and beyond. Politics is the art of the possible, and every appointment should be weighed against its alternatives."  

"What many British remainers who resent Cameron for calling the referendum and then fleeing the scene do not understand, however, is that it is Boris Johnson who is blamed by politicians and diplomats across Europe for the post-Brexit fallout, much more than Cameron. Yes, there will be jokes in Brussels, Berlin and Paris about Cameron and his garden shed, but it’s worth reminding ourselves of a basic point: he does not hate the EU, nor – as a new peer – does he need to impress people who do. 

"He is neither an anti-European ideologue, nor a careerist populist who has to sell his every move to the tabloids at home. Not holding deep convictions leaves Cameron open to the charge of opportunism, but it means he can adapt to a drastically changed geopolitical landscape. Given the dismal state of world affairs, this flexibility could be an asset."

David Cameron with Jean-Claude Juncker at the European Commission’s headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, February 2016.

'The Guardian' link

Ultimately, the newly ennobled Lord Cameron is a now a caretaker at the Foreign Office. There is only a year left, possibly less, until the next general election. At the moment, there is every indication that it will result in a change of government. But at a time when the world is on fire, it would be wrong and irresponsible to suggest that it no longer matters who runs key UK government departments until then.

David Cameron’s Tory party is dead – and its ghost can’t save Rishi Sunak

says Rafael Behr

"Rishi Sunak’s government now looks a bit less repellent to disillusioned Tories in the party’s southern heartlands – the so-called blue wall – where Liberal Democrats are eyeing up seats."

Rishi Sunak’s decision to bring David Cameron back into government is a bold act of surrender. It is an admission that the only way out of the mess the Tories are in might be back the way they came.

There is practical utility in having a former prime minister at the Foreign Office in times of global crisis. Cameron has experience in diplomacy and security matters that no candidate in the cabinet can match. His restoration, coupled with Suella Braverman’s departure, also has a domestic function in reminding voters of a level-headed brand of Conservatism that was elbowed aside by the swivel-eyed nationalist tendency."